Profumo

In the swinging sixties a sexpionage spy scandal took place called the Profumo Affaire unfortunately two of its players were amateurs and didn't know what the rules of their spy games were ; one was sacrificed as a scapegoat and the other Christine Keeler lived life under a long dark cloud until she died and all because they were enlisted by MI5 into taking part in a Russian honey trap for Queen and country which went dramatically wrong ; Dr Steven Ward a brilliant osteopath and gifted portrait artist was demonised and double crossed to the point where he took his own life with an overdose of sleeping tablets the poison chalice , Baron Profumo who was the cause of it all retired in disgrace cleaning toilets and working for a charity where he was eventually awarded an OBE to pin next to the MBE and bronze star that he'd won as a military hero in the war . A wax statue still stands of Steven Ward in the house of horrors at Madame Tussauds a terribly cruel homage to say he was only doing what the British secret service ask or doubtless ordered him to do . The scandal also brought an Iron Curtain crashing down on the conservative government of Harold Macmillan .

You can listen to Profumo online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Profumo is an episode from Poetry by Steven Richardson.

This episode is 00:03:36 long.

This episode was published on Mar 12, 2024.

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